Tuesday, January 4, 2011

quicko: holiday-stricken nation

My gosh, everyone, I have a grievous announcement to make:  Australia is a horrifically holiday-stricken nation.

It comes as a shock, I know, but I can attest firsthand.  You cannot know how many Australians have opened their overworked hearts to me and lamented how direly in need of a holiday they were.  The examples are countless, but they generally suffer from waiting approximately a year without a "proper" holiday.  (Weekend excursions as far as Bali do not count.)

Today, however, everyone having just returned to work after ten days off, I was amazed to hear the discussion begin so soon.  My co-worker, it transpires, has led a very egregious existence wherein no holiday light has shined.

"I haven't had a holiday in a year," he sighed, as I hastily scanned the room for smelling salts.

"Um, what about Christmas?" I asked.

Christmas did not count.  Neither, it transpired, did the week off (or was it two?) he'd had four months ago.  It was a hectic vacation, you see.  It had been well and truly a year since the poor soul had frolicked merrily on the shores of free time.

He's not alone, of course.  Somebody did a study that the Australians are the hardest working people on earth and the Australians, bless their hearts, believed them.  They live their 4-week-mandatory-vacation-a-year lives constantly in the agony of knowing someone -- the French, for example! -- are lazing their European lives away with twice the number of public holidays, and probably 6 weeks a year.

It's enough to make anyone need to sit down and sunbathe fast.

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